Iranian parliament: No evidence on use of chemical weapons by Syrian government

The Iranian parliament condemned the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but said there is no evidence to prove that the Syrian government has used such weapons. “The issue of using chemical weapons in Syria has always been raised by the armed opposition, but no side has yet been able to prove the accusation against the Syrian government about using such weapons,” the parliament’s Research Center said in an analysis on Monday. The analysis rebuffed the opposition’s claims that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, and said if the Syrian army had used such weapons, the supporters of Damascus could have no more defended the country on the international scene against those who wanted to wage a military attack on it. It said that the armed opposition forces who are not committed to any international principles and are fervently supported by the Arab-western media have used chemical weapons whose instance can be seen in the chemical attack launched on Khan al-Asal in the outskirts of Aleppo in March. The analysis concluded that the hues and cries of certain Arab and western states on the use of chemical weapons against the opposition in Syria are parts of the media and psychological war against the legal government of that country. Russia in June presented evidence to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on the use of chemical weapons by "the Syrian opposition" in Aleppo. "I have submitted to the UN chief the results of analyzing samples taken by Russian experts at the site where the shell was fallen in Khan al-Asal... I want to stress that we have got the samples directly, not through a third party," Russia's permanent envoy to the UN Vitaly Churkin said to journalists at the time. He added that the samples were analyzed in a Russian laboratory, officially approved by the OPCW, and the outcome proved that on March 19, 2013, the Syrian opposition launched non-guided shells of "Bashaer 3" on Khan al-Asal area which is controlled by the Syrian army. On June 19, 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin said chemical laboratories in Iraq are producing chemical weapons for the terrorists in Syria, confirming a detailed report by the FNA in May which said former Ba'ath regime officials are involved in the production and procurement of such weapons to the Syrian terrorists. "We know that Opposition Fighters were detained on Turkish territory with chemical weapons," Putin told a press conference in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland after meeting the leaders of the industrialized nations in a G8 Summit. "We have information out of Iraq that a laboratory was discovered there for the production of chemical weapons by the opposition. All this evidence needs to be studied most seriously," he continued. Putin questioned the credibility of allegations by the US, UK and France that Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad's forces had used chemical weapons, and attributed equivalent horrors to the forces supported by the West. Early May, informed sources told FNA that the innocent people killed in the Khan al-Assal area of rural Aleppo in Northwestern Syria were the victims of the chemical weapons supplied to the terrorists by a Saddam-era General working under head of the now outlawed Ba'ath party Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri. "The chemical weapons used in the attack on Khan al-Assal area had been prepared by former Iraqi Military Industries Brigadier General Adnan al-Dulaimi and supplied to Ba'ath-affiliated terrorists of the Nusra Front in Aleppo through Turkey's cooperation and via the Turkish town of Antakya in Hatay Province," an informed source, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of his life, told FNA on April 6. The source who has been an aide to Izzat Ibrahim - the most senior member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle who is still on the run and heads the outlawed Ba'ath party after the apprehension and execution of Iraq's former Dictator Saddam Hussein - defected from the group a few months ago, but holds substantiating documents on Izzat Ibrahim's plans. Gen. Adnan al-Dulaimi was a key man in Saddam's chemical weapons production projects. After the fall of the dictator and when the Ba'ath party was divided into the two branches of Yunes al-Ahmad and Izzat Ibrahim, he joined the latter group and was deployed in Northwestern Iraq, which is a bastion of Ba'ath terrorists, to produce chemical substances. "The 80mm mortar shells which landed in Khan al-Assal and killed dozens of people were armed with the latest product of Dulaimi's hidden laboratories sent to the Nusra members for testing," the source added. "Also at his order, several former Iraqi military industries engineers trained the Syrian terrorists on how to use these chemical weapons," the source said, adding that all plans in this connection were prepared by Adnan al-Dulaimi and staged after the approval of Izzat Ibrahim. The chemical mortar shells, which the source said were fired at Khan al-Assal from the Nusra-ruled Kafr Dael in Northwestern Aleppo, contained a chemical substance very familiar to the Iraqi Ba'ath party leaders, Sarin nerve gas. Adnan Dulaimi and his Ba'athist colleagues in Iraq's military industries mass-produced the same lethal gas and used it in vast areas against the Iranian troops in the 1980-1988 war and eventually killed thousands of people in the Kurdish town of Halabcheh with the same chemical agent. Also on June 19, UN human rights investigators announced that they have testimony indicating Syrian rebels have used Sarin gas. Interviews with victims and doctors have provided "strong, concrete suspicions" that rebels used the deadly nerve agent, according to a lead investigator, who also stressed that there's no evidence yet that the Syrian military used Sarin. "Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of Sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated," member of the UN independent commission of inquiry on Syria Carla Del Ponte said in an interview with Swiss-Italian television. "This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities," she added, speaking in Italian. The United Nations independent commission of inquiry on Syria has not yet seen evidence of government forces having used chemical weapons, which are banned under international law, Del Ponte said. The chemical attack on Khan al-Assal came after a video footage posted on the internet late in January showed that the armed militants in Syria possessed canisters containing chemical substances. The foreign-sponsored militants had earlier released footage in which rabbits were killed by inhaling poisonous gas.